In last night’s Sounders 2-0 win over Salt Lake, RSL sent Tacoma native Rafael Cox — formerly of the University of Washington — into the game in the 84th minute.

I got a few of his thoughts after the game.

“It felt really good to come back home and be able to play,” he said. “I haven’t seen everyone for like two months now since we’ve been in preseason. It’s really good to get out there. It’s too bad the ball didn’t bounce our way tonight and we lost, but it was nice to be back home.”

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Here’s my game story. And here’s how it looked to the Salt Lake Tribune.

Coach Sigi Schmid was happy with the three points in the standings, but he wasn’t giving any extra style points tonight. He clearly wasn’t pleased with the way the Sounders played with their lead.

It was certainly not a scintilating second half for us,” he said. “They pretty much kept us pinned in in our end of the field. They did a good job in terms of their work rate and their effort was tremendous.”

That said, his team is 2-0-0

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Greg Howes vows to bring: "Structure, passion, youth, and professionalism [to] develop relationships in the community that will help the development of [soccer] in Tacoma."

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I’ll have a preview story in the Saturday paper, looking back to 2004, when Salt Lake City beat out Seattle for an MLS expansion team.

But for now, an early look at the first one-field meeting of the two sides:

REAL SALT LAKE

AT SEATTLE SOUNDERS FC (1-0-0; 3 pts.)

7:30 p.m. Saturday, Qwest Field.

TV: KONG 6/16.

Radio: 710 AM, 97.3 FM, and in Spanish on 1210 AM.

Other meetings: Seattle makes its regular-season return visit to Salt Lake on Aug. 8. The sides also will meet April 28 at

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The long and winding road that will take Jeff Parke to parts unknown has gotten longer still. Parke informed Sounders FC on Wednesday that he will no longer train with the team.

Parke had been the Sounders’ selection in the expansion draft. However, he wasn’t under contract and chose to investigate career opportunities in Belgium. However, those didn’t work out and he arrived in Seattle last week. However, apparently that didn’t work out either, and now he’s off to parts unknown.

After practice today at Starfire, coach Sigi Schmid said that Parke’s bridge back to Seattle isn’t necessarily

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The Sounders have just concluding their training session at Qwest Field. After we got some time with Freddie Ljungberg and Sigi Schmid, and both seem pretty settled on Ljunberg making his MLS playing debut Saturday against Real Salt Lake.

“I’ve been feeling good, so it shouldn’t be a problem,” Ljungberg said. “I’ll probably play a part of the game at least, so we don’t overdo it the first game. I’ll be there and I’ll play part of the game for sure.”

Bringing Ljungberg off the bench also suits coach Sigi Schmid.

For one thing, Schmid sounded

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Sounders FC is inviting fans to help with a bed net fund-raising campaign at the Sounders-Real Salt Lake match Saturday at Qwest Field. Fans can contribute at ticket gates, the Pro Shop or through soundersfc.com.

Here’s part of the Sounders’ news release:

Donations go directly toward the purchase, distribution and education about the proper use of a bed net, which can prevent malaria. The month-long campaign will culminate on World Malaria Day on April 25.

"Every 30 seconds a child dies from malaria," said Sounders FC majority owner Joe Roth. "The Nothing

But Nets drive

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Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber gave something of a state-of-the-league conference call today, and clearly he was in a Northwest frame of mind.

Garber called last week "one of the more exciting weeks in league history," and all of the excitement was in the Northwest: awarding an expansion to Vancouver on Wednesday (see video above), the Sounders’ opener on Thursday, and awarding an expansion team to Portland on Wednesday.

"That’s going to create a rivalry that we think is going to change the landscape of soccer in the United States

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